William Strong

“ That this is a very different invention from anything exhibited in the original specification and drawings is too obvious to need further elucidation. We cannot doubt that the purpose of the reissues was not to cure defects in the original specification, or any deficiency in describing the invention, but to cover other devices which the patentee had not in mind when he first applied for his patent, and which may have subsequently come to his knowledge. Thirteen years after the patent was granted had elapsed before he applied for any reissue. ”

“ However this may be, the reissued letters are so clearly for a different invention from that for which the patentee first applied, containing new matter, and so much broader, that we are constrained to hold that the Commissioner of Patents had no authority to grant them, and consequently that they are void. ”

“ Not a single ray of heat could enter the chamber, radiated from the fire. No passage was provided through the bottom, and even the perforations in the sides must have been ineffectual to divert the ascending heat from its upward course through the flues.
If, now, we turn to the reissues of 1869 and 1870, it cannot be doubted that while they claim what was claimed in the original, they claim much more. They claim an entirely different mode of heating the chamber, necessitating a radical difference in the construction of the oven. ”